What Is X-ray? Part I 

Source of pictures: Pixabay.com

The brother who loves to play football upstairs had broken down. He had to rely on crutches when he went out. Daniel felt very sorry for him. Thinking of his vigorous figure playing on the sports field, he hoped that he would get better soon. Seeing Daniel was so boring at home, his mother asked him to send some fruit upstairs and kept the brother accompany.

Daniel obediently held a basket of fruit standing at the door of the brother's house. After ringing the doorbell, Aunt opened the door and saw Daniel. She said happily, "Daniel, are you taking a holiday? Come in."

Daniel handed the fruit to the aunt arduously, and told her that he was to see the brother. Aunt told Daniel that the brother was in his room. Daniel went into it.

The brother's room was very different from that of Daniel. There were not so many toys or beautiful stickers. There were many posters of black sports stars hanging on the wall. Daniel didn't know any of them. There were thick books on the desk, and the brother was sitting in front of it, starring at a piece of paper for a long time. The brother looked up at the Daniel and greeted him with a smile "Wow, I haven’t seen you for just a few days. It seems that you are even taller."

Daniel said happily, "Of course, I am catching up with the speed of bamboo shoots, which grow a section in a week." Meanwhile, he turned his eyes to the brother's desk. There was a strange painting. He pointed at the painting curiously and asked, "What is this painting?"

The brother picked up the painting and said, "This is not a painting. It is an X-ray film. See? These white ones are my bones."

Daniel listened, and stared at the X-ray film in surprise with his eyes wide open. The shape looked really like a bone. But it was white and scary.

Daniel suddenly became very interested in it. He took the brother's hand and asked, "How did you shoot this? How can there be no flesh but bones?"

The brother moved aside and let Daniel sit down and had a look at the X-ray film. Fortunately, he did know it, otherwise he might be really stuck by this little boy. Thinking of that, he explained, "It is shot with X-ray. X-ray is much more powerful than Ultraman's laser weapon. Although it is called light, it can't be seen by human eyes. It can penetrate the skin directly. The thicknesses of human body tissues are different，and so is their absorption capacity of X-ray. The higher its density is, the greater the absorption of X-ray is. So, the bone is shown white on the X-ray film, while the other tissues absorb less, and they are shown black."

Daniel listened, and I admired him for having such a cool bone photo. He couldn’t help but stared at it for a long time. They also counted together how many bones there were.

When he was back home, Daniel was still thinking of the brother's bone photos. Before his mother asked about the brother, he asked his mother, "Mom, I saw his bones photos, although it looks a little scary. But it's so cool. I also want to take that photo and see if I have my bones right."

Mother looked at his serious look and couldn't help but smile. She touched his head and said, "Did the brother tell you how the photo was taken?"

Daniel nodded hard and said "Of course, the brother told me that it was shot with X-ray, which is more powerful than Ultraman's laser weapons."

Mom stopped smiling and said seriously, "Do you know what X-rays are? X-rays are very penetrating and can pass through your body. Although occasionally taking X-rays has no side effect, but in some cases, X-rays are harmful to human bodies."

Looking at Mom's serious look, he asked apprehensively, "Are there X-rays around us? Is there any way to prevent it from penetrating our body?"

The food was almost cold, his mother urged him to eat first.

He was taken aback for no reason. Thinking that he needed the solace of food, he laid aside his doubts and went to fill his stomach.

Author: Huang Jing